You know, I’m really glad that I’ve been getting positive feedback about my writing about birth because I’m very nervous about upsetting people. The last thing I want to do is make someone feel bad about their medically necessary C-section, or to feel like a failure because she was induced. That’s not my intent here.<\/p>\n
G wrote in her comment, “I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t help but think that I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really care how the baby gets here. As long as he comes out alive.” And that really is the crux of the matter. It’s something that I am now really struggling with, because the two sides of me don’t seem to be thinking alike. The side of me that still views birth as a wonderful event, a gift, thinks how the baby gets here DOES matter. It is not THE most important thing, but it matters. But the other side of me, the mother of a stillborn, thinks we should just be getting the baby OUT. Just get it out as soon as possible! Alive! And stop whining and worrying about the rest!<\/p>\n
But I think we miss the boat if we only worry about the most important thing. To me it’s like worrying only about the foundation of your house. If the foundation is crumbling, no amount of paint and furnishings and artwork is going to fix it, and it’s certainly not a good idea to worry about which artwork you have on the wall if the foundation has fallen apart. But for the most part, for most of us, the foundations are holding strong. And wouldn’t it be a sad life if we all just sat around patching up our foundations? If we didn’t bother with the other stuff because it wasn’t fundamental?<\/p>\n
And I think, to some degree, those other things are<\/i> fundamental to us, to our spirit. We need meaningful things in our lives. And no, not everyone wants nice artwork. Some of us want lots of flowers in our homes. Some of us don’t really matter what’s on the wall as long as we have music playing. But I think we should at least have the option of artwork, and flowers, and music, so that we can choose what we want in our life. And if you’ve never experienced it before maybe you should try it if you can, see if you do like it, see if it means something to you.<\/p>\n
Not everyone wants a natural birth. For some people it just doesn’t matter. And not everyone has the option of a natural birth, sometimes there are medical impediments. But all I’m saying is that we should protect our right to have it, to try it. We should be encouraged to try it, told we can<\/i> do it if we want to. So many people in our society don’t even know it’s an option. Their caregivers tell them they require<\/i> IVs, or require<\/i> being in bed the entire time, they look surprized and confused when asked about it. Their families tell them they’re foolish to even try, and laugh at them.<\/p>\n
And sometimes it doesn’t work out when we do try it. One of the hardest things seems to be finding the balance between being dedicated to a natural birth and being accepting when things don’t go to plan. It’s a delicate balance, and hard to find. If you aren’t sure of yourself and that you really want to do it, chances are you will find yourself wavering in the middle of labor. You really do have to be sure of your choice. But on the other hand you cannot<\/i> be so set on what you want that you can’t accept diverging from the course. Feeling that if you ended up in c-section that you “failed.” Or if you got an epidural that you weren’t “strong enough.” You always always have to remember that, despite the best-laid plans, mother nature follows her own path. You need to have a healthy amount of respect for what is out of your control. You make choices that affect the outcome: your mental preparation and training, the people you surround yourself with during your birth, your location\/hospital. All these choices play a part in the grand scheme of things and are very important, and deserve your time and energy in making them. But once the game is in motion you have to trust that you did the best you could and things will play out how they will, and simply make the best decisions for what is in front of you. It is too late to second-guess, to place blame.<\/p>\n
This is something I am going to struggle with, I can tell you that right now. Last time was so fucked up that I didn’t go into the labor room with the intention of a natural birth, it just turned out that way, for which I am grateful. But next time? Next time will be different. Next time will be “normal.”<\/p>\n
Every labor is unique. You may have a posterior baby; your membranes might rupture before labor starts; you might have a very long labor, or very short, strong one; you might have back labor… none of which you can know in advance (with the exception of baby position – you might know that one in advance, but babies can and do turn at the last minute). What kind of labor your friend had, your mother hand, even you<\/i> had in previous pregnancies, don’t really mean much when you come right down to it. I’m still hoping that my first labor is an indicator of how my second one will go, but light knows it’s far from any sort of guarantee. They’re all different. They all have curveballs. I sure as hell didn’t expect to be induced, or to have a very short labor. Either one of those could have totally<\/i> thrown me, had I not already been in shock at the other circumstances.<\/p>\n
Of course<\/i> the most important thing is having a live, healthy baby. But I believe that, with proper monitoring and good birth attendants, I can have that and<\/i> the birth experience I want. I do not see them as mutually exclusive at all. Is one more important? Absolutely. I will throw my birth plan under the train if my baby is in danger. I am going to be worried sick, and probably completely paranoid. I have my own demons to face – it is going to be a hard journey, and I know that, I accept that.<\/p>\n
But I can have hope, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You know, I’m really glad that I’ve been getting positive feedback about my writing about birth because I’m very nervous about upsetting people. The last thing I want to do is make someone feel bad about their medically necessary C-section, or to feel like a failure because she was induced. That’s not my intent here. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[76,69],"class_list":["post-1179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ivf-3","tag-loss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1179\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}